RE: Discussion Question

Discussion
Question: (Fabric of the mind at least 150 words with reference included)

This
video generates amusefor me. For some reason (I no
longer ask why) I felt the need to pursue this term that is being used to
describe an important aspect of cognitive psychology -generally,
and specifically - the termiconin relationship with memory.

Memory
and the study of thisepiphenomenonof the mind is utterly fascinating and
I do not believe our text (Galotti 2014) gets into this as deeply as this post
generated a pursuit of thought in me.

So, in
order to bolster this stimulus somewhat let me offer a quote that really got me
going here -

Memory is
a biological abstraction. There is no place in the brain that one could point
at and say, Here is memory. There is no single activity, or class of
activities, of the organism that could be identified with the concept that the
term denotes. There is no known molecular change that corresponds to memory, no
behavioral response of a living organism that is memory. Yet the term memory
encompasses all these changes and activities. (Galotti, p. 117 2014)

This
quote by in our text (Galotti 2014) by Tulving follows some thinking on the
subject with what the main author states

It is not
clear which aspects of memory are localized in one place in the brain and which
are distributed across different cortical regions. It is not clear what kinds
of basic neural processes are involved in any one particular complex cognitive
activity. (Galotti, p. 117 2014)

My
interpretation of all of this, based on being around the academic block for a
few years is despite all of the "technological" advances and cool
graphics available to academia today, there are some pretty mysterious forces
at work within our brain. The text quoted above, translated, is this -we
like to think we know exactly what is going on, but we still are not completely
sure.

So, after
a little research based on your post - I offer the following tidbits for your
"quiver".

First the
Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition of "icon".

†1.a.An image,
figure, or representation; a portrait; a picture, 'cut', or illustration in a
book; esp. applied to the 'figures' of animals, plants, etc. in books of
Natural History. (OED Online, 2014).

Secondly
- from our video we hear/see

So that
from the vast amount of temporary storage in photographic memory or iconic
memory, a little bit is maintained in short term memory for a matter of
seconds. It then fades away, unless you rehearse it or unless it becomes
important to you, it fades away. But if it becomes important, then you store it
in long term, permanent memory. (Memory:
Fabric of the mind 1988)

Now -
this, and in addition to the post, is what fascinates me. This is,
essentially an ancient idea. It is not new. It is, most definitely
of Judeo-Christian origin. It comes from the idea of the Latinsimulare/similare. This is where we get
our word Simulate. From here we can directly track from the Greekeikon,
where we get our present use of the word icon.

To end
this rather meandering piece on "iconic" memory - it is my
proposition-voilá-based
on the above - that one of the things that makes us "god-like" (term
used loosely here) is our iconic memory process!

One of
the videos for the week is Living without a memory (2003). I am in the process
of reviewing this video and as I do so I cannot help but to recall material
regarding the story of H. M. This is a tragic tale of medical surgery removing
a part of the brain in the pursuit of helping with epileptic seizures.

The
result of this operation - which is quite well covered in our other video -
Into the mind: Broken brains (2010) - is quite well documented.

Please
share your thoughts on what is being learned from this week's material
regarding the brain, cognitive psychology and memory.

I think
it's very touching to hear stories about individuals who have lost their
memories. I can't even fathom the thought of not remembering my loved ones, and
the memories we've created together. Two concepts from this week that I believe
ties well into this discussion are those of anterograde and retrograde amnesia.
The story of Gene is a great example provided by (Galotti, 2014) to
explore anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

(Galotti,
2014) states, "Gene, for example, survived a motorcycle accident in 1981
(when he was 30 years old) that seriously damaged his frontal and temporal
lobes, including the left hippocampus. Gene shows anterograde amnesia and
retrograde amnesia. In particular, Gene cannot recall any specific past events,
even with extensive, detailed cues. That is, Gene cannot recall any birthday
parties, school days, or conversations" (p.131).

Moreover,
the video"Living Without
Memory" also makes me think about the concept of episodic memory, which
(Galotti, 2014) defines as "Any of your memories that you can trace to a
single time" (p. 131). Examples of episodic memory include: the ability to
remember your first date, first time driving a car, or your first job.

Chapter
5 is so fascinating and so much of Chapter 4 is intertwined in the studies of
Short-Term Memory (STM) or Working Memory (WM) (Galotti, 2014, chap. 5).
I am very fascinated with the concept of central executive resources and
I prefer to call our STM, Working Memory. Working Memory does seem to be more
of a system that allocates resources to task that we are attending to (Galotti,
2014, p. 111). Stimulus-Independent Thoughts (SIT) (Galotti, 2014, p.
113) are of particular interest to me. SIT are daydreams or intrusive thoughts
about problems or issues of concern in our lives (Galotti, 2014, p. 113).
Intrusive thoughts seem to haunt you and you have to find a way to distract
yourself so they do not engulf all your mental energy.

What
I found to be of interesting was how Baddeley referred to the use of executive
cognitive resources being effected by the familiarity or complexity of the task
being attended to (Galotti, 2014, p. 113). As in chapter 4, unfamiliar
and complex tasks require more cognitive resources than familiar tasks.
In Chapter 5, Baddeley relates that unfamiliar and complex tasks require
more executive cognitive resources, in the same way chapter 4 related
attentional task to cognitive resources.

I think
Baddeley has the right idea that WM is more of a processing system for
attentional task that deals with the way cognitive resources are allocated
(Galotti, 2014, p. 111). So the central executive would be the system that
controls many of the phenomena reviewed in Chapter 4 (Galotti, 2014, p.
111).

If you
are experiencing intrusive thoughts (SIT) and they aren't pleasant daydream,
start a task that requires your full attention and use the full capacity of the
WM to ward off the intrusive thoughts. WM in chapter 5 is fundamentally
like attention in chapter 4. Tasks that are familiar require less executive
cognitive resources and the likelihood of interruption in cognition due to
daydreams or intrusive thoughts is highly likely (Galotti, 2014, p. 113).
On the other hand, doing an unfamiliar or complex task requires more
executive cognitive resources and there is no room in WM for the daydreams or
the intrusive thoughts to interrupt the attentional task (Galotti, 2014, p.
113)